A SAR Image Enhancement Algorithm using the Discrete Wavelet Transform

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images are badly affected by the existence of the speckle noise. In this research, we present an algorithm for despeckling the SAR images. This algorithm makes efficient use of the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and the directional smoothing filter (DSF). The DWT has been widely used in image denoising applications, while the DSF is well known for enhancing the SAR images in the presence of speckle noise. The efficiency of the combined algorithm has been demonstrated for both real and simulated speckled SAR images at different noise variances, and the obtained results have been compared to the results acquired while applying only DWT, DSF and other traditional methods. Moreover, the quality investigation has been performed to emphasize the algorithm efficiency.